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My feelings won't be hurt.
I even appreciate you spending three minutes on the phone with me.
And a week later, I was in his office in California and I came back with finished software, which I didn't even know he had programmed on his own.
And we went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
But it worked because my consistent story is I'm going to keep my promise.
I'm going to tell you my truth.
And the authentic thing for me to say is I'm scared shitless.
I'm way over my head.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
That would have been authentic, but that wouldn't have been consistent.
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Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
Seth, thanks for joining us today.
Well, thank you for having me.
Learning how to talk to other people and make a difference is a key part.
Strategy, marketing, of all of it.
So I'm really honored to be here.
Amazing. We are honored to have you, my friend.
So in this conversation, what I want to do is focus on creative conversations because we always focus on difficult conversations, business negotiations and things like that.
But when I think about you and your work, I think about creativity.
But when we think about creativity, it's not easy to put these creative practices into play because sometimes other people are not receptive of that creativity.
And so I just want to set the stage with that and then ask you, when you think about these difficult conversations about creative options in marketing and business.
How should we approach these conversations?
What a great place to start.
Okay, so the key word here is enrollment, that we grew up with compulsory education and you enrolled your kids in school because it's the law, but we don't learn anything important against our will.
All learning is autodidactic.
We learn it because we want to.
And when we think about conversations, negotiations, engagements, interviews, If someone doesn't want to be there, if they're not open to the interactions you're having, it doesn't really matter how hard you're trying.
It doesn't really matter how skilled you are.
That the hard work is to create the conditions for people to want to have the engagement in the first place.
And we don't spend nearly enough time on creating the conditions and way too much time on the last part, which is not important if you haven't created the conditions.
It's not going to work.
That makes a lot of sense.
So essentially, a lot of times we're having conversations with people who are not receptive to the conversation or even like the foundation of the idea of the conversation, the premise of the conversation to start with.
Yeah. So I'll use a giant example, and then we can talk about smaller ones.
20 years ago, I had a meeting at CAA, the legendary talent agency in Beverly Hills, California.
And you pull up, and they valley park your car, and you walk in.
And the lobby is bigger than the reception area in the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.
It's just this huge, giant, empty space.
And 200 feet across the room is one extraordinarily good -looking person behind a desk.
And you have to walk all 200 feet just to get through the lobby.
and then that person presses a hidden button and you're ushered into the room.
Do you think that the conversations that happen once you're in that room are different than the conversation if you're walking down the street and there's some sign -flipping guy hustling you for 20 bucks, right?
It's only 10 minutes apart but there are completely different transactions because Mike Ovitz invested in this lobby.
So where this begins for me in every interaction I've ever had is let's get real or let's not play.
And back when I was selling, I invented email marketing a very long time ago.
I had one of the first internet companies.
And back when we were selling, we could get into almost any office in New York because everyone was interested in the internet.
And David Simon, my head of sales and I are sitting there pitching this agency, the head of new business.
And everything we talked about, they're like, no, or objection or hassling us.
And after 10 minutes, I shut my laptop, I put it in my briefcase, I shut the briefcase.
and fortunately for me, David and I had worked together, so he followed my lead.
The two of us, after only eight or 10 minutes, shut everything down and I said, you know, it doesn't sound like this is for you, but thanks for your time.
And we stood up to go.
And before we got to the threshold, they chased us into the hall and gave us a check because they were just putting on a show for themselves.
And as soon as they felt like we understood they weren't serious, they had to prove that they were serious.
And I didn't do it as a tactic.
I did it because I didn't want to waste my time or theirs.
This is fascinating, Seth.
There's so much to explore in this because I know you did not do it as a tactic, but it did have a very strong response.
If it was done intentionally, it would have been very effective.
And I think one of the things that's very powerful about this is that it's genuine, it's real, it's transparent, and it's honest.
And I think there's a lot of power in that too.
Yeah, great point. So you began by asking about creative.
If I am talking to someone who doesn't have an opening to have a creative conversation, there's no solution to the problem other than creating the conditions for having a creative conversation.
So we have to begin by establishing either very clearly or subtly what the ground rules are of what's about to happen here.
And there are a hundred different ways to do that.
But if you walk into the same boring conference room with the same coffee and the same donuts and you try a different creative approach, it's probably not going to work.
This is fascinating.
And what's coming to mind for me is in the field of negotiation, we have these buzzwords that come up a lot.
We have collaboration and oftentimes creativity.
We want to be creative.
And we realize that the more paths to victory we have, the more likely we are to achieve victory.
It's very straightforward.
But then a lot of folks who say, all right, great, I'm going to try to be more collaborative.
I'm going to try to be more creative, they run into these walls.
And now I'm recognizing, hey, one of the main reasons we're running into these walls is because there are two different storylines that are happening because you might be coming in saying we are going to be collaborative problem solvers and we're going to work creatively and collaboratively to get through this together.
And they might see negotiation as a war.
It's me versus you.
And I don't know what kind of tricks or wizardry you're trying to play with this creative option, but I'm not interested in it.
So we have to take a step back and just reset the table.
Just clear the table and start again and be very clear about our approach.
Because if it's our storyline versus their storyline and it's completely subconscious, then we're going to be fighting a losing battle and not understanding why we're not breaking through.
Yeah, exactly. And so most of the great work that I've read about negotiation is about the authentic human ways we have to reset the system itself.
And it can be something as simple as talking to the person you're having to negotiate with and saying, can we go for a walk?
Because if you're standing next to that person outdoors, it's okay to have a different kind of conversation because you've changed the venue, right?
That if we think about taking out one of Zig Ziglar's talking pads, so now you've got a legal pad and you're sitting next to the person and you're writing down things and they're writing down things as you go.
You've transformed thing.
In the digital world, I do almost all my negotiating in a Google Doc because what I'm saying to somebody is, here I am typing, there you are typing.
There's no fear in describing what it is you want because it's semi -asynchronous.
It's not like you have to perform here.
We can just talk to each other in this linear way.
And then there's no he said, she said, because it's right there.
It's what you typed, right?
But it keeps coming back to let's get real or let's not play.
It keeps coming back to this idea that why are we talking to each other anyway?
We're talking to each other because we agreed that we want there to be an outcome.
It's not a war. I'm not on defense because we're both trying to go over there.
That is powerful. And I like this, your approach, authentic human ways to reset.
And actually, I'll tell you something here.
I've never told on the podcast.
I've said it in trainings before, but there's one word that I've never used leading up to or during a negotiation.
And that is the word negotiation.
Because I recognize there are so many negative biases associated with that word.
So, hey, let's get on the phone, let's chat, let's have a conversation, let's work this out, or let me get a better understanding of you.
Whatever it is, it's never, it is never a negotiation.
Because I don't know what storyline or what scripts they're going to start following.
And a lot of times those are not advantageous to either party, because it just starts us off in the wrong type of direction.
Yeah. And the other side of that, though, is there are people who use words like negotiation and looking out for number one, to put other people who aren't as skilled as they are on the defensive.
And if someone does that for you, to you, at you, you don't have to accept it, right?
So if they say to you, my final offer is $12, take it or leave it.
That's just what they said, that's not necessarily what they meant.
And you don't have to start acting in the construct that they've just described if you don't want to.
And you can say, wait, we can have a different kind of conversation here, but not if I have to work inside of the conversation you've already started.
Right. That's fascinating because in the same way they're framing this as take it or leave it.
I'm making an offer.
You can accept or reject it.
We're really in a subconscious unspoken way.
a lot of times what's happening is that we are accepting and rejecting frames and not even recognizing it.
We're doing it subconsciously, we're doing it passively.
And if we're not recognizing and paying attention to the meta negotiation that is happening beneath the surface, then we sometimes accept these frames that put us at a disadvantage.
And we're struggling in these conversations because we don't recognize that we're negotiating from a disadvantaged position too.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And for you, you're a known quantity in this industry.
And so I recognize that when people have these conversations with you, you have a brand that is well known and they more or less understand how you operate in the industry.
but before you became Seth Godin who you are right now before people knew who you were and you were trying to have these more creative conversations what other roadblocks did you run into that you had to circumvent in order for you to negotiate authentically in the creative way that you like to operate well first I'm just going to put a pin in the word authentically I think in general authenticity is a bit of a oversold crock that's not necessary I think authenticity is for friendships relationships if we're in business we seek to be consistent you have to find a consistent that you can live with but when you're
a professional no one wants you to show up or not show up because you feel like it they want you to show up or not show up because you said you would and that's true for a heart surgeon it's true for an attorney it's true for a cop you don't want to go to see a performance of your favorite musician and have them have a tantrum on stage because they have a headache that would be authentic but that would not be consistent so with that said i have been very consistent in my negotiating career for 40 years.
I'm still not nearly as well known as people think.
There are some people who know who I am, but most people don't.
But let me tell you, my first job was in 1983, 82 at a company called Spinnaker Software.
And we invented educational computer games.
I was a brand manager.
I was way over my head.
I was 23 years old.
Everybody else was in their 30s.
And this was one of the products I made, Michael Crichton's Amazon, one of the very first illustrated computer games.
And I had to go get the rights from Michael's very fancy agent, Lynn Nesbitt, and from Michael Crichton, one of the best -selling authors of his genre.
And I had no advanced money to spend, not a dollar.
My boss said, if you can go get this, great, but we're not putting up any money.
So the entire pitch had to be one that was in the interest of Michael's desire to play in a space that he wasn't currently playing, because I couldn't pay him Hollywood money.
I couldn't pay him Jurassic Park money, but I could offer him other things.
So instead of starting this whole long thing, and then at the end saying, oh, by the way, the advance is zero, I called up Lynn out of the blue.
And I said, I want to tell you two things.
Number one, there might not be a bigger Michael Crichton fan than me.
And number two is, we're not going to pay any advance whatsoever, but we're going to pay double the royalty of anybody else and give Michael complete 100 % creative control.
I said, if those things are important to him, if he wants to play in a new space and he wants to play with somebody who gets him, that's what we have.
And if not, my feelings won't be hurt.
I even appreciate you spending three minutes on the phone with me.
And a week later I was in his office in California and I came back with finished software, which I didn't even know he had programmed on his own.
And we went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies, but it worked because my consistent story is, I'm going to keep my promise.
I'm going to tell you my truth.
And the authentic thing for me to say is, I'm scared shitless.
I'm way over my head.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
That would have been authentic, but that wouldn't have been consistent.
Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question.
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This is so powerful.
You're absolutely right.
First of all, it's a brilliant story.
But also, I think this is a very, very important thing for professionals of all types, even outside of negotiation, to fully understand, too, because you're right.
The term authenticity, similar, in my opinion, to the term vulnerability, has been overused to the point of meaninglessness and to the point where it almost condones some maybe perhaps maladaptive and problematic behavior.
So this is actually very, very helpful.
And I think the term consistency is a lot easier to understand.
It's a lot more tangible.
And I think that makes it a lot more operable for the everyday professional because you're absolutely right.
We want to be consistent in word and deed that builds trust and that trust is by itself persuasive.
And one of the things that I don't want to overlook with this story is that when you're negotiating, negotiating, having tough conversations, it involves some risk, right?
And you're putting it out there and you're saying, hey, listen, I understand that there is a risk that this will not work out.
And I want to be clear and transparent so you can have the autonomy and respect to know, I want you to be able to make a good decision.
And that decision might not be favorable to me.
And I am okay with that.
Just conveying all of that could be much more persuasive and powerful than any stack of persuasive or negotiation techniques you could utilize in that same exact negotiation.
Yeah. All right. So then the next topic that I think might be useful is this idea of tension.
Many people, even negotiators, try to avoid tension.
And let me start by saying tension and stress are not the same thing.
Stress is bad because it's wanting two things at the same time so it can never be resolved well.
If you're stressed long enough, you're going to burn out.
You're going to get ill.
Tension, on the other hand, is the only way to get a rubber band to fly across the room because I got to pull it backwards and put it under tension before I let it.
If you want change to happen, any sort of change, you are creating tension and we need to do it on purpose.
So if you want to buy a house from someone, there is a moment for them that's very tense.
Maybe I'm not selling it for enough.
What will happen if I move?
Is this person going to follow through?
Will we have to, all of these things unfold because you just showed up to make a change happen.
We create tension. And manipulation happens if we create tension just for us and we use it against other people.
But if we are doing something that will benefit them, then creating tension is a service.
So if I'm selling concert tickets, saying we're going to sell out in an hour when it's true, creates tension, FOMO, I don't want to be left out.
So people rush to buy tickets before the last minute.
If that wasn't the case, concerts wouldn't sell out the way that they do.
but people knowing they might get left behind.
So what people care about at work and at home is status and affiliation.
They're different, but they're related.
Status is who's up and who's down.
Will this tension help me get to where I seek to go on the status ladder?
And affiliation is who else is doing this?
Who's to my left and who's to my right?
Is this safe? Is there peer pressure?
And ultimately those two things keep kicking in in a negotiation.
So if I'm buying something for work.
It's not my money. Why don't I just give you all of it?
Why don't I just say this is the total amount I have here?
And I don't do that because if I can go back to my boss with a better deal than that, my status will go up, right?
And so that's what motivates people in a business setting to have these kinds of interactions.
So when I've done projects that have succeeded, they have to be creative.
They have to be worthwhile, but I also have to have a way to create tension to help people say yes when ordinarily they'd say later or maybe or no.
So the purest example was after I left the job at Spinnaker, I had no resources whatsoever.
I was eating macaroni and cheese and I just got married.
I was living in a law school dorm.
And what I decided to do was a really useful directory of the fanciest law firms in New York City, because the law students were all getting bid up, 60, 80, $100 ,000 a year for, in 1984 dollars for these jobs, and the firms were doing nothing to differentiate themselves.
And so what I came up with was a book that I was going to give free to every student at the top 15 law firm, law schools in the country.
I just go to their law school and distribute it.
And it had in it a two -page description of each one of the firms that was in it.
So now the firm could say, this is why you should work with us.
These are the kinds of projects we do.
These are statistics about our firm.
So instead of just saying we're the highest paid one, they could tell their story.
And it cost $2 ,000 to be in the book.
So I knew that when I reached out to the person at the law firm whose job was to be in a book like this, I wasn't interrupting them.
They were the head of legal recruiting.
And I said, I'm doing a book like this.
They would all say, who else is in it?
And then I would be in a real chicken and egg situation.
So what I did was I took the eight biggest firms and I put them in for free.
And I didn't ask him first.
I just said, these eight firms are in because you're allowed to do that.
First amendment. Then I sent a letter by FedEx to the next 50 firms.
And the letter said, these eight firms are in the book.
True. And this is what the bios are going to look like.
You can be in the book too.
It's $2 ,000. And those 50 FedEx letters got me 40 checks for $2 ,000 the next day.
Incredible. Incredible.
And speaking as somebody who is a little bit removed from law school, I know that status and affiliation are big drivers in the legal industry, more so than things like oxygen and love.
So that's incredibly powerful.
But it shows also, too, just how powerful it can be to reframe around tension and around status and affiliation.
And again, one of the my undergrad degree was in psych, so I love the psychological foundation for all of this.
And one of the things that's been an interesting oversight in the negotiation space is the lack of focus explicitly on the psychology of status, because it's such an important driver.
Right. And when you think about status and how it impacts your approach to not even persuasion, but just communication in general, what place does that do you put it when it comes to consideration of status when you're just communicating in general with people?
Everyone is either going to be focused on status or affiliation.
I've rarely found someone who's not focused on either one.
And so the reason there's a laugh track on a sitcom is because when you're hearing other people laughing, it's funnier.
It's just that simple.
So, you know, I've given a thousand talks around the world.
And if I'm giving a talk, the prospect of the talk is that this is going to help you achieve your goals.
And the people around you are going to see that.
The pitch, the reason I got hired to give the talk is because the organizer is saying to the audience, I had the status to get this guy to fly across the world and you have the status to be there.
And that's why they don't just play a video of one of my TED talks, even though the information might be just as good.
The prize of me coming is the status thing.
Afterwards, if there's a book signing, that's all about affiliation, right?
My book is the same if whether I sign it or not.
In fact, on eBay, it's worth less if it's signed.
But you get to say to yourself, I met him and he handed that to me.
That's something of value.
And so I use that setting to get under their skin and then do what I'm there to do, which is I'm a teacher and I'm teaching them something.
But I wouldn't be able to be there to be a teacher if I wasn't using status and affiliation, create tension to cause forward motion.
This is powerful, Seth.
And I want to respect your time too and land the plane with this, because we talked about the intentional creation of tension.
And then we also, you mentioned this, how the misuse of tension can lead to manipulation.
And this is something that comes up quite frequently when I'm doing the trainings, because people can see, all right, I use this approach, and then people change their minds.
but is it okay for me to do this?
It's so interesting.
So when people talk to you about the difference between persuasion and marketing and manipulation, how can you help folks who are well -meaning people just draw that distinction so they can feel more okay with doing what needs to be done to be successful?
Well, this one's personal.
This one's important to me.
It's not my job to tell you your answer.
I'm just going to tell you a useful compass.
You don't have to do this for a living.
There are lots of things you can do for a living and you don't get tomorrow over again.
So why do you want to do something you're ashamed of?
And why do you want to do something you have to hide from other people?
Why wouldn't you eagerly give somebody their money back?
Why wouldn't you sell a product that doesn't need to be hustled?
You can sell anything you want.
Don't sell something that requires you to take advantage of people with payday loans and take advantage of people who can be easily confused or tricked.
My dad, it took him a few years to pass away from dementia.
And in those last few years, several very skilled telemarketers sold him tens of thousands of dollars of worthless silver coins.
And I finally got one on the phone and I said to the person, are you living on the street?
Do you have a house?
Do you have a place to, you know, do you have food?
Yeah. Well then of all the things you could have done today, why did you need to end on purpose take advantage of somebody who doesn't have the same cognitive abilities that they used to have and why are you stealing for a living just because you can get away with it doesn't mean you should and we have so much leverage and so much privilege and so much opportunity to make things better i have a hard time respecting somebody who says nope i'm good at manipulation and i'm just going to take what i can get i don't buy that yeah i'm with you i'm with you.
And I was curious to hear your response, Seth, because when it comes to personal ethics, it's different people draw the line differently.
And my line is pretty simple.
And it's family based, too.
I say, if my mother, father, grandparents, sons, my wife, if they were watching me negotiate, would they be proud?
That's it. I can't say with specificity what that is, but I know it.
Like, I'll feel it, right?
And I think everybody has to have that clarity.
Because if you're not clear on your values under pressure, then you're just going to do what's expedient, what gets you to the objective.
But if you don't pay attention to those values, you won't know what not to do under those circumstances.
Yeah. I mean, the problem with racing to the bottom is you might win and, or even worse, come in second.
Because if you're willing to compromise, guess what?
There's some hustler who's going to compromise even more than you.
Now you're really in trouble because now you got to compromise even more.
That is powerful. Seth, I really appreciate you taking the time to spend with us.
You're a legend in the industry.
Thank you. I know you have a busy day.
And before you go, just one last thing for the listeners who want to learn more, connect with you.
What's the best way?
I have 9 ,000, almost 10 ,000 posts at Seths .blog, S -E -T -H -S .blog.
And my new book, This Is Strategy, you can find it at Seths .blog slash T -I -S.
Amazing. Seth, thank you so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
Keep making this difference.
It matters. Thank you.
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